Amy Duggar Says She’ll ‘Always Shield’ Her Son from the Family’s Troubling History

Amy Duggar King is opening up about why she has chosen to keep her 6-year-old son, Daxton, away from the troubling scandals surrounding the Duggar family.

 

During a May 13 appearance on The Dory Jackson Interview, Duggar King discussed her decision to distance herself from her extended family and protect her son from information she believes is too difficult for a young child to understand.

Daxton, whom Amy shares with husband Dillon King, met members of the Duggar family when he was a baby. Looking back, she said she regrets allowing that relationship to develop at such a young age.

“He doesn’t know that side of the family,” Duggar King explained. “He met them when he was a baby. And that’s something I regret. 100 percent.”

For now, Amy said she intends to keep her son insulated from the allegations and painful family history.

“But I will always shield him from that,” she said. “When he’s older, I’m going to explain, ‘Hey, mom was on a show,’ you know, and really kind of tell him, but until then, I get to shield him from a lot of that.”

Amy said protecting Daxton is particularly important because of his outgoing personality and young age. She wants him to experience childhood without being exposed to disturbing stories involving abuse or children being harmed.

“He’s 6-years-old. He needs to live in innocence,” she said. “And I love that he’s having such a beautiful, happy childhood. A safe childhood. That’s most important.”

Her comments come after years of controversy surrounding members of the Duggar family.

Amy’s cousin Joseph Duggar was arrested on March 18 and charged in Florida with lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under 12 and lewd and lascivious behavior by a person 18 or older. The allegations involve a girl who was 9 years old at the time of the alleged incident in 2020. The charges remain allegations, and Joseph has not been convicted of the offenses.

The arrest brought renewed attention to the family’s history, including the case involving Joseph’s older brother Josh Duggar.

 

Josh previously admitted to inappropriate conduct involving several young girls, including his sisters Jill Duggar Dillard and Jessa Duggar Seewald, when he was a teenager. He was later convicted of federal child pornography offenses and sentenced in 2022 to more than 12 years in prison.

For Amy, those events prompted a deeper examination of the environment in which she grew up.

In an April interview with PEOPLE, she described Josh’s scandal as “just a huge eye-opener” and said it ultimately convinced her that she needed to create distance from the family.

“There’s a lot more to the story, and I was just like, ‘No,’ ” she said.

Amy also began questioning some of the beliefs and teachings she encountered while growing up around the Institute of Basic Life Principles, or IBLP, a fundamentalist Christian organization founded by Bill Gothard.

She emphasized that she was not formally part of the organization but said she was surrounded by its influence.

“I wasn’t in it, but I was surrounded by toxic cycles and I did not really fully recognize that,” she said.

That realization led Amy to begin questioning what she had been taught and educating herself about the beliefs and experiences that shaped her childhood.

Now, she says her priority is different: giving her own son the safe and happy childhood she believes he deserves.

For the time being, Daxton remains unaware of the family controversies that have made headlines. Amy says she will decide when and how to tell him about that history when she believes he is old enough to understand it.